


Iactura

by Pokytoad



Series: A Vessel of God [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Partisans, Religion, WWII, jk there's no comfort, liet being a gross poet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-09-20 17:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9502892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokytoad/pseuds/Pokytoad
Summary: Lithuania writes to Poland during the armed resistance against Soviet occupation, 1944-1951; Complete





	1. July 30, 1944

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably going to be an experimental tragedy on my part.

July 30, 1944

Dear Poland,

It is with honest bewilderment that I should address this letter to you. Rest assured, it won't be reaching your hands. I do not intend to send it. As to the manner in which I have chosen its receiver, my pen scrawled out your name before I gave it thought. You were chosen merely by instinctual circumstance. Despite our conflicts these past decades, there is no other being at mind to which I can confide in my troubles. Surely you understand the depth of my simple pain.

I write this deep in the Dainavos Giria, where we played in our youth. My men sit here and keep company with one another. We know we will not win this fight.

But we are not irrational. We are not ill-minded.

It is with the conviction of our hearts that we have entered this fruitless war. We fight to show the West, the Soviet Union, and ourselves that we will not be taken easily, as spoils of war, the tarnished jewels of our captors.

My people will remember this struggle to maintain our honour, I promise you.

I have not eaten in days, but my stomach burns only with nationalism - a fierce pride has seized my entire being.

I suppose it's good that your eyes will not glance across this page; I see the mess it is quickly becoming. I cannot keep my fingers from shaking; the pen wobbles in my hand. Such is the joy of writing in my own language, at will and in the open, for the first time in years. You never bothered to learn my alphabet anyway.

Forgive the repetitive fragmentations of my thoughts. These things that press against my lungs take me in the dead of night like a stolen kiss. They rattle my chest and toss my heart into the throes of aching desire.

I live in shades of black and white, but I dream in colour.

Sincerely,  
Lietuva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I tried to tone down the flowery, King James-ness of Liet's letter but he wouldn't have it - angsty poet that he is. There are parts where I kind of squinted like. Gross. You sappy loser. ~~He's probably showing off the fact that he can, indeed, write anyway~~
> 
> In any case, he's old-fashioned enough that I'm sure writing like William Shakespeare is a forgivable twentieth century crime. 
> 
> I think we can unanimously agree that he either puts _everything_ into what he does or literally nothing at all.


	2. August 2, 1944

August 2, 1944

Dear Poland,

I hope you don't expect a letter every day. I cannot maintain such a trivial activity on a daily basis. In any case, life is far too monotonous for me to share the fine details. You would quickly grow bored of my descriptions of the same forest trails and the same sky and the same meals.

I still tread through the Dainavos region, but I cannot tell you any more of my whereabouts, in the event that I am captured. The stakes are high. We are given the orders to prevent ourselves from being captured alive - at any cost. Just this morning, we walked into a nearby village and found the bodies of two brothers laid out on display there. Their faces were gone.

Singing adds a bit of colour to every evening, and lifts our spirits. I have decided to copy down one of our favourites, Alytė, in English:

_Soldiers are stepping, row after row,_  
_To defend our dear land,_  
_The Lithuanian country._  
_A flock of birds, dressing the sky,_  
_Sing and fly overhead._

_Leaving, the son comforted his mother:_  
_Please don't be sad while I am gone._  
_Goodbye, dear mother, goodbye, dearest,_  
_Maybe we will see each other again_  
_after the cruel war._

_Near my father's grave, there,_  
_next to the chapel,_  
_I gave an oath to be a son of Lithuania._  
_Once vowed, will not repeat again -_  
_I will fight to defend our dear land,_  
_the Lithuanian country._

_My love will not visit my grave,_  
_She won't deck my grave with flower blossoms,_  
_Steel bullets will visit my grave,_  
_Will comfort me forever lying in the ground._

It both gladdens and wrenches my heart to hear these men - not my brothers but my sons - utter these words with such conviction.

I fear for each of them.

Sincerely,  
Lietuva.


	3. August 8, 1944

August 8, 1944

Simonas Adomaitis: partisan  
1917-1944  
Vilnius

Darijus Lukas: partisan  
1899-1944  
Šiauliai

Marytė --: liaison  
1928-1944  
Kaunas

Lukas --: civilian  
\--  
\--

I suppose I should inscribe the names of the fallen in my company from here on out. They will be listed in the margins of the paper with what little information I can recall without endangering their families - if they have any. For some, I have changed their names and hometowns for the sake of honouring their wishes; they deserve as much.

Forgive me, I haven't the heart for proper greetings and introductions - the day has been long and painful.

We are lucky to have only lost three after intercepting a band of Reds who had found sport, like many of their comrades, in thieving away my citizens' possessions and belongings. They had been pillaging a village in Suvalkija for a greater part of the afternoon.

Given to corrupt methods of obtaining what they so desire, the Ivans harass and spit, they beat the elderly and frighten children. Such brutal tactics only ease when a household patron is present to dissuade them with a bucket of homebrew and the important documents that are demanded of him. It is a common activity - a trait of sorts - that the Soviets have adopted. By day they steal, by night they arrest. Many of my children have lost sleep over this nauseating aprehension that now has become a permanent plague.

And so, today we decided to educate this afore-mentioned ragtag group of Reds on the consequences of beating and plundering our elders and our wives, our mothers and our tiny futures.

They opened fire on us inside a rickety man's home, killing said owner in the process. His name was Lukas, if I recall from the half-opened pile of mail that was sitting on the kitchen table with his undisturbed noontime meal.

Such violence was unexpected; most of the thieves we had previously encountered were yellow-bellied and easily scatted off. I had not anticipated such an act as this abrupt and needless crossfire which killed the man we intended to defend. The guilt weighs heavily now on my conscience, for would it have been better for him to lose his furniture or his life?

In addition, little Marytė was only sixteen, and had tagged along with us for a visit into town to collect rations and information from the front. Her midday adventure proved to be of great misfortune.

We won our victory, but it is a loss all the same, amplifying the pounding in my forehead that has festered there for weeks now; I remember it well from '41, but now it has grown into a frequent and daily onset of the constant bloodshed. I wish to record the feeling of death before I become numb to it.

On a brighter note, a few local liaisons have found an amusing solution to the tangled mess that is becoming my hair recently (I haven't got the heart to cut it, see). I look silly, like a young woman, with my hair braided into a bun atop my head. But it's functional, and I think you would quite like it.

Sincerely,  
Lietuva


	4. August 14, 1944

August 14, 1944

My people, my people.

They are pushing what they can through the weathered slats of the train car, which hisses and sighs as if succumbed by the great burden of its cargo. This mass of young men, calling to their wives and reaching for the chubby hands of their children, tossing down damp letters and leather wristwatches and wedding bands from their breast pockets. The distraught people on the platform raise fisted hands bearing what offerings they could carry - wax-papered parcels, dried meats, preserves, bread; crumpled wads of rubles and rosaries bundled up in spare sweaters.

The Soviets do nothing; bargains are always welcome. Their possessions will be thieved away at the nearest opportunity.

One young woman strains to pass forward her tribute, and a pitying supervisor lifts her up by the hips; callused, blackened fingers curl around a gold-engraved compass, and I can barely make out the words above the chaos of the station: " _kur esate, aš būsiu._ " The doomed man's hand threads through her hair, and I must look away then, because it is all at once a raw and forsaken intimacy.

It is the exchange of the dead and the dying.

Even the village beggar has arrived to offer up a day's work: a basket of stale bread and spoiled fruits and vegetable scraps. He fumbles about in his blindness, weeping as he cries out. "These poor men are going to see far more hunger than I ever will."

They call them "pseudo-Americans". These forcefully conscripted ranks of men possess such anti-Bolshevik sentiment that they have recently taken to flighting away from the Soviet Army at every given opportunity. Even sent to the front lines unarmed, the collection of such units has become so bothersome in recent months that the Reds have found considerable convenience in deporting them to the Siberian tundra.

And I stand here, a spectator paralysed by agony. I do not feel the tears until they are dripping onto my collar. The sensation of muscle being torn away from bone is not unexpected; this terror began in the summer of 1941.

I leave the station then, and vomit in the undergrowth. The United States and Great Britain signed the Atlantic Charter three years ago on this very date, but we remain here, in the abandoned vestige of the world.

We are forgotten.

Lietuva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to ruin myself with Lithuanian phrases. If the gender/grammar is wrong please tell me.
> 
> I originally posted this around June 14th last year, marking the 75th anniversary of the initial deportations of Baltic citizens to isolation in remote territories of the Union. The deportations, from 1941 to 1952, would amount to over 129,000 in Lithuania alone. This was especially heart-rending because tradition had it that a family could not be at rest with the death of a member until the body had been given a proper burial, and most exiled citizens died in the wilderness - never to be returned to their homeland.
> 
> My dates aren't going to be pinpoint because nothing is pinpoint in history. The deportations of Lithuanian soldiers did not begin until the spring of 1945 (conscription into the Soviet army, however, began much sooner. And they clearly learned their lesson the first time around because by the mid-40s most young men were sent to labour camps instead of the front).
> 
> The Atlantic Charter, signed August 14, 1941 by the U.S. and Great Britain, promised to bring about the reinstated sovereignty of occupied nations in the event of Allied post-war victory. Which went down real swell. The Lithuanian partisans regarded this document with utmost importance, as it (superficially) validated their right to the reinstatement of Lithuania's independence.
> 
> America (we can all reasonably assume this was America's doing here), in its usual euphoric manner, made a promise that was too great to maintain.


	5. January 30, 1946

Rimas Rackaitis: partisan  
1920-1946  
Vilnius

Petras Barakauskas: partisan  
\--  
\--  
  
Gvidonas Stravinskas: partisan  
1918-1946  
Anykščiai  
  
Edmundas Veiverys: liaison   
1930-1946  
\--  
  
Tadas --: partisan  
1907-1946  
Klaipėda

Dainora Talaisyte: liaison  
\--  
\--

Audra Giraitiene: liaison   
1926-1946  
Šiauliai

 

January 30, 1946

I remember the last time I saw you.

You were sitting alone, amid the twisted wreckage and the carnage and the crumbled brickwork. Your beautiful city was being razed to the ground, and there you were, praying as if it were Sunday mass. 

Even with your back turned, even with a helmet on your head, I knew it was you. You were caked in so much filth that I could only tell by the subtle shifting of your shoulders, and the way your head was not bowed, but tilted towards what remained of the soaring rafters of the cathedral. The watery sunlight filtered through the ceiling, ethereal, fragile.

I almost regretted loading my Soviet rifle and aiming it at your head.

You stole my capital, and I destroyed yours. 

It was a fair trade at the time.

You crossed yourself then, and stood up, and turned to face me as if you were merely inconvenienced. 

"Good morning, Litwo."

"Lenkija."

You were lighting a cigarette - I hadn't seen you smoke since the twenties - grinning at me, but there was only hatred in your eyes. I wanted to break your jaw.

I readjusted my grip as you took a step towards me, and your laugh was cold, careless.

"Go ahead, Litwo. You're a lousy shot."

Oh, I could have shot the lighter right off the rim of your stolen helmet.

Instead I lifted my head and dropped the gun. I wanted to kill you. I wanted to take you up in my arms.

But as easily as I could have shot you, Poland, I couldn't have shot Feliks. Enough of us had already done that.

Beneath your façade I could see the desperation. I could see the sleepless nights and the agony and the _hurt_. You welcomed death.

There was a bullet tearing through my abdomen before I realised you had pulled a pistol from your tattered jacket.

Then you ran.


	6. February 16, 1946

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this on a mobile device I'm sorry. I formatted it for PC and that's just how it's going to be.

February 16, 1946

I've been independent for 28 years today.

I don't apologise for the frankness of my last letter to you, but I do acknowledge it. It was pencilled in a heated moment stricken by grief and resent. I was given a brand-new pencil and a pad of paper as an early birthday present and had the opportunity to write more than coordinates and positions for the first time since '44.

The past two years have been difficult for the pair of us, although I can breathe some sigh of relief that you have been elected to represent a satellite state, and not one of the Soviet republics as I am. It is wholly wrong, that you should have fought so diligently - I've heard stories of you, Poland, assisting in Bletchley Park, joining the RAF before returning to your own land - only to be traded in as a token of war to a nation already brimming with stolen goods.

It is wrong.

I have lost over 100,000 of my people to the unforgiving plains of Siberia since the war ended. What was once a burden of the army's losses has now extended to the common citizens; women, children, the elderly. Librarians and tailors and mail carriers and teachers and artists. I used to vomit blood. I used to weep for them, in the dead of night, deep in the woods where no one would see me clawing at my contused, collapsing chest.

Now there is nothing. Just numbers on a scrap piece of paper, scrawled out in distressed cursive with a dull pencil. Silence.

If you cannot strip man of his nationalism, of himself - for what is there to fear if we are unafraid of death - you strip him of his family. You strip him of the only thing he has to return to. They've taken our heritage, and they've collectivised our lands, they've stripped us of our books and our language and our religion and our very _being_. 

All that is left is to strip us of each other. 

We are all of us cattle. Sick, war-weary and depraved of life. A grey, formless mass of starvation leaves my country while the world sleeps, in overcrowded train cars painted with the words воры и проститутки.

It's time I introduce you to my section. There's been talk of organising us into official districts and units, but for now I head a section of 11 men: Aušrinė. The Morning Star.

Some find it peculiar that a captain should head such a minor unit, but I seek intimacy with my citizens, even if I've been warned against it. Their lives are so slight in this fragile state that I might as well search out a place among them. I've sketched out a few pictures of my men as best I can on the back of the page - I'm no artist but I want to remember Kazys' square jaw, Danielius' permanently windswept hair, the odd warmth to Tomas' eyes. I'm writing their stories here, because by the end of this war there will be no one left to recount them.

Simonas Rudkus: second in command  
Codename: Gediminas  
Occupation: physics professor at Vilnius University  
Notes: married with three children; very close friend and ally -  
            specialises in espionage and strategy, also a good hand at chess

Tomas (Tom) Salinskas: medic/partisan  
Codename: Kastytis  
Occupation: surgeon in Vilnius  
Notes: married; short-statured and short-tempered; can skin a rabbit  
           in half a minute; rough around the edges but very caring

Danielius (Dan) Lankelis: chaplain  
Codename:  
Occupation: studying deacon in Kaunas Cathedral Basilica   
Notes: has a wonderful laugh; the only man among us with a latin Bible;  
           once served us Holy Communion with some rye biscuits and vodka  
           

Kazys Dicius: cook/partisan  
Codename: Sausainis  
Occupation: originally saving up for studies in France, pastry chef  
Notes: ruddy cheeks, just like you might imagine a pastry chef to look;  
           can make almost anything with rye flour and pickled herring

Titas Niaura: scout/partisan  
Codename:  
Occupation: --  
Notes: selective mute; sleeps in the tree boughs; brilliant sharpshooter -   
           uses his bare hands to fish in the Nemunas

Albertas Krupelis: scout/partisan  
Codename: Bubilas  
Occupation: farmer/beekeeper  
Notes: married; close friend of Titas; rather loud, but tells incredible folk tales;  
           doesn't wear shoes in the summer (against his better judgement)

Vejas Marsalka: partisan  
Codename:  
Occupation: college student  
Notes: engaged to be married; publisher in local university newspapers;   
           wants to be a journalist; owns a dairy cow named Bukaprotis 

 Vakaris Straskauskas: partisan  
Codename:  
Occupation: librarian  
Notes: can speak English, Russian, and Dutch; impeccable memory;  
           draws out maps and trails; dreams of travelling to India

Mykolas Vinciunas: partisan  
Codename:  
Occupation: college student  
Notes: quite lovesick - trails after the liaison girls during in-town  
           trips; very good accordion player, although out of tune

Joris Sepetys: partisan  
Codename: Laumė  
Occupation: college student  
Notes: reads poetry aloud when we have time to rest; dreamy -  
           much like Latvia; enjoys whittling animal figurines

Jonas Martinka: partisan  
Codename:  
Occupation: --  
Notes: orphaned in '45 (aged 16) youngest in our section along  
           with Joris; used to play the fiddle; loves dogs

 

As before, some of my men's names have been changed for the sake of what fragile safety we can lend ourselves.

I pray for them.

Lietuva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your eyes are not mistaking you; most codenames have been left blank because, after a good week of collaboration and inner debate, I have decided that this section of the letter quite possibly _would_ have been left blank to be filled in at a later date. Partisans earn codenames over time and, while they are too crucial to be omitted, I've decided to develop names with the characters themselves.


	7. March 6, 1946

March 6, 1946

_Remember, oh man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return._

There is something writhing in my chest again, as Dan whispers the words and runs his thumb across my forehead, leaving a cross of ash there. He prays over me, and recites a scripture I know well:

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."*

When he has done his work, Dan invites me to offer up my own prayer.

So I kneel before each of them, hands on either side of their bowed heads. I press my forehead against theirs, ashes to ashes, and for a passing moment I wonder if they can tell to whom I send my prayers, if they can taste the ages on my tongue.

We used the bark of our sacred oaks to make the ash, dark and fine.

_Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ._

It is the beginning of Lent, and we haven't got anything left to fast. 

Dust to dust...

_From men you were formed, and unto men you shall return._

Lietuva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Psalm 73:26


	8. July 7, 1948

July 7, 1948  
  
Albertas Krupelis (Bubilas)  
1929-1948  
Klaipeda  
  
Agnes Sulminiene: liaison  
1930-1948  
\--

Titas brought us this story; he didn't say anything, of course, but we know it is from Albertas' belongings because there is blood staining the edges. I read it aloud over the company fire last night and attached it to the back of this letter; please be careful with it. We've been sleeping outside instead of in the bunkers this summer - so we might see the stars.

_Once upon a time, there was a man who came across a dragon in the forest, trapped beneath a fallen tree._

_"Please kind sir, can you help me?" The dragon asked._

_The man considered him. "How shall I be repaid?"_

_"I will repay you with an honest reward." The dragon replied, and so the man used his axe to free the dragon._

_The dragon sighed in relief before turning to the man. "That is all good and well, but now I must eat you," he said._

_"You promised me a reward!" The man cried, affronted._

_"Don't you know, all good deeds are repaid with evil."_

_The man got down on his knees and pleaded for his life, "Why don't we travel down the road and ask the first three we meet how our deal should be decided?"_

_"Very well," the dragon replied, and they went down the road together. At length they met an old dog lying in the sun._

_"Please my dear dog, can you help us decide what should happen in a deal between us?" the man asked the dog._

_"What is your deal?" He asked._

_And the man told him of how he had freed the dragon only to have the dragon seek to eat him._

_"When I was young, my master cherished me, because I would guard his flocks with my sharp teeth," the dog replied. "But when I grew old and my teeth became worn, he beat me and chased me away, for I was no longer of use to him. I say to you, all good deeds are repaid with evil, so the dragon should devour you!"_

_They continued on until they came to meet a horse._

_"My dear horse, can you help us decide what should happen in a deal between us?" The man asked the horse._

_"What is your deal?" She asked._

_And the man told her of how he had freed the dragon only to have the dragon seek to eat him._

_"When I was young, I was beloved by my master, for my strong legs could plough his fields better than any ox," the horse replied. "But after I gave birth to a foal and grew weaker, he sold me to an old abusive drunkard, for my son could plough better than I. A good deed is always repaid with evil."_

_They continued on until they met a fox._

_"My fox dog, can you help us decide what should happen in a deal between us?" The man asked._

_"What is your deal?" He asked._

_And the man told him of how he had freed the dragon only to have the dragon seek to eat him._

_"What will you give me for my decision?" The fox asked._

_"I promise you a goose." The man replied._

_"Follow me," the fox told him as he led them into the woods where the dragon had been trapped. "You must show me what happened, please lie down as you were before."_  
  
_The dragon did as instructed, and the fox helped the man knock a tree onto the dragon, trapping him in place._

_The man and the fox made their way back to the man's home then, leaving the disconsolate dragon behind. The fox waited outside while the man went in and told his wife of what had happened._

_"You fool!" She told him. "Take a gun out with you and shoot the fox for his fur."_

_So the farmer took a goose in one hand and his gun in the other and went outside to see the fox._

_The fox was so excited at the sight of the goose that he didn't notice the gun, and the man got close to the fox and he shot him. As the fox was dying he groaned in agony:_

_"All good deeds are repaid with evil."_

 On note of the silence, I've burned all the letters you were to receive after 1946.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original folk tale: All Good Deeds are Repaid with Evil
> 
> Such an unexpected title.


	9. April 18, 1949

April 18, 1949

Dearest Poland,

It seems that all I have to tell nowadays are fickle stories, but I find this particular story to be worth the small indulgence of sharing. I've been spared enough empty time to pick up the pencil again; an infected gunshot wound caught up to me, in my lower torso near my left hip. I suppose I passed out from the pain one night because when I came to, Tom was trying to stick me with morphine and the entire company was in disarray. Now they won't let me move so much as my littlest finger in protest of resting. 

They know I don't like being idle; I can bet you my best fountain pen that this is their way of punishing me for delaying treatment so long.

The night we took up Vakaris Straskauskas, he was mute with grief and so black with soot that we had to shine a torch on him to see what was man and what was forest, but we had known him long before that. I've already described him in one of my prior letters, and from the sketch you should know that he is thin, short, and wears round eyeglasses. For a few months in '45 he proffered up his small Vilnius apartment as a meeting place for the officers; we gathered in his kitchen every night and he gave us biscuits and tea, even though I knew he had none to spare for himself, given how barren his cabinets were.

Underneath his flat was a library - an old and elegant spiralling staircase led us to rich chambers of mahogany and leather and vellum. And surveying the territory between the flat and the library was Vakaris' only companion: a broad-faced Turkish Angora with moonlike, agile features and a cold expression. Mėnulis watched us from the crowns of carved shelves with the close eye of a bridge keeper. 

Because he had refused to destroy a lengthy index of forbidden literature some months before, a list that would have comprised nearly half of the library, Vakaris was a primary suspect of the Gavlit; I wish I could say I was surprised when, one morning, all that remained of his beautiful athenaeum, his entire antebellum existence, was a gaping black hole. And he was kneeling on the cobblestones, still grasping at the white, ashen pages that rose from that blackness and tumbled across the street like a flock of crippled birds. 

I took him to our makeshift camp then, and Tom sponged away the black and the blood and the sweat. Every once in a while his mouth would gape in an agony brought on only by the anguish of a man's spirit. We wouldn't learn until much, much later that it wasn't the library he was so distraught over. The NKVD had emptied the entire street on the night prior, and he was convinced that it was his fault, for he had given a sizeable portion of his books to the neighbours that week and feared his actions had spurred over a dozen families' dismissal to Siberia. The poor man was inconsolable for days. 

Of course, the NKVD needs to see only the slightest error to distribute their trademark tickets to hell. It is far more likely that they had seen _us_ lingering on the outskirts of the city and some poor, innocent fellow had been accused of harbouring partisans, so they swept up the whole lot of the street.

Vakaris has been a permanent member of our section for almost 4 years now, and works closely with Titas to sketch out crude maps of our whereabouts. He still envisions travelling to Himachal Pradesh, an isolated, enchanted land in India where he can admire the great deodar forests and bask in the glory of God.

I wish I had time to share every man's story, they are each as unique as fingerprints.

Lietuva


	10. May 24, 1949

May 24, 1949

 

_Does the moon dream of the sun,_

_Even though it means the end of night's reign?_

_Does ice long for summer,_

_Even though it means the loss of winter's throne?_

_Does rain wish for drought,_

_Even though it means the end of a dynasty?_

_Then why does man,_

_Think so much of death?_

\- Joris


	11. May 31, 1949

May 31, 1949

 

There is nothing quite so merry as the nights when villagers offer us sanctuary and bring pails of fresh baked breads and soup and vodka with them. Those nights are becoming scarce, because the Soviets, having realised they cannot destroy us at first hand, have taken to tyrannising innocent citizens instead, and we're losing their support. They are so ill with war and hunger and fear that I can't blame them. 

I look upon evenings like the one spread before me now with a sacred, worshipful sense of gratitude. 

Mykolas is drunk as a fish, grinning at the liaisons as he leans heavily against the bunker's makeshift table. There's hardly any room in the cramped space for dancing, but someone has tuned in the shortwave radio to a popular British swing station and two or three pairs of evening darlings are trying their hand at it. I can see Jonas standing guard at the open door, only half-illuminated in the lantern light and looking like he dearly wishes he could join in the cheer.

Tom is sitting on the bench next to me, frowning crossly with a thick slice of black bread in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other.

"Burrheaded halfwits."

"Oh hush, Tom. Let them have their fun."

He huffs, but I can see the tiniest tilt at the corners of his lips. 

"I'm going to end up stitching Mykolas' head when he finally falls over."

"Dan will catch him."

"Maybe I'll bash his head in myself. I don't know how much longer I stand the sound of that accordion."

I laugh because Mykolas' accordion is untuned enough when he's sober, and now he's struggling to force some strange song out of it.

I still wonder how no Soviets ever stumbled upon our noisy festivities, and I also wonder if any sections in the LLKS were quite as daring as we were. It was just as well either way, because we were so lashed with headstrong courage at the time that it wouldn't have mattered if we were caught or not.

People tell stories of the _Armia Krajowa_  as if they are Greek legends you know, even after the Augustów Chase in '45. I wonder, Poland, at this very moment, if you too are watching your brothers dance to shoddy British swing and an incapacitated accordionist. Probably not; I bet you're the one dancing.

Lietuva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Armia Krajowa (Home Army, AK): Polish resistance movement during WWII/early Soviet occupation
> 
> Augustów Chase: 1945 NKVD-led anti-guerrilla movement that took place largely in Poland but bled into a good portion of occupied Lithuania as well; over 2,000 Polish partisans were captured and detained in Russian internment camps. 
> 
> Lithuanian and Polish anticommunist fighters actually had a good deal of bad dirt with each other between 1940-1953, if the inconsistency of Liet's correspondence is any indication. Feisty children didn't know how to forgive OR forget.


	12. July 12, 1949

July 12, 1949

Tomas died today. 

There was no morphine left to ease the terror of dying. He cried for his wife for some time, and as the light began to spirit from his eyes he cried for his mother instead - between horrid, wet, rattling gasps of air. We could do little more than hold his hands and attempt to comfort him; I cradled his head close to my chest, where he could feel my breathing, hear my voice, and wiped away the blood that bubbled from his lips.  
  
It was several bullets lodged in his ribcage, coupled with  a gaping shrapnel wound in his back. The result of a frantic, half-mad ambush near sunset.  
  
I still remember the kind, empty words that we were all speaking, all at once. Trying to stave off the bleeding with what poor medical knowledge was shared between us - he was too frantic to give instruction.   
  
Simonas rifted through Tom's pockets until he found a damp photograph of his family. By that time he was losing consciousness, but we folded his smiling wife and son in one of his hands and his rosary in the other and gathered him up close. I recited a once-forgotten prayer as what was left of our medic bled through our fingers, baptising the earth with his life.   
  
_I commend you, my dear brother, to Almighty God,  
_  
 _and entrust you to your Creator.  
_  
 _May you return to Him  
_  
 _who formed you from the dust of the earth.  
_  
 _May Holy Mary,  
_  
 _the angels, and all the saints  
_  
 _come to meet you as you go forth from this life.  
_  
 _May Christ who was crucified for you  
_  
 _bring you freedom and peace.  
_  
 _May Christ who died for you  
_  
 _admit you to his garden of paradise.  
_  
 _May Christ, the true Shepherd,  
_  
 _acknowledge you as one of his flock.  
_  
 _May you see the Redeemer face to face,  
_  
 _and enjoy the vision of God for ever.  
_  
 _Amen._


	13. January 7, 1951; 00:50h

January 7, 1951  
  
There's no paper left. 

I found this ticket stub on the floor of the train station.

Everyone is dead.


	14. January 7, 1951; 03:15h

January 7, 1951

My favourite colour is suspended between the two most impressive bodies of matter on earth: a whitewashed lavender, dusted with the most chaste blush of the sun, illuminates the overturned bowl of the sky while the ocean casts up its beauty like a great looking-glass.

Sunrise.

 


	15. January 8, 1951

please help me


End file.
